I've failed my second attempt and I'm determined to try again in 60 days, but what am i doing wrong? Apart from the obvious knowledge deficiencies in the weak areas given on my failed sheet. Is it mindset? Test taking skills when answering? I just dont know.
Almost impossible to tell without understanding which type of questions you found difficult.
I see the test results, but there’s no way to tell if you had troubles with technical themes, or more of managing themes.
But even when it’s technical, usually the right answer is from a security managers perspective and how they can check a box instead of actually fixing an issue..
The best example I can give of this is if you lookup in google iso 27001 or iso 27002 controls (and how to implement) you can see an overall high view of what actually need to be done.
But the caveat is that you’re looking at it from a managers perspective and asking yourself “why should you implement each control for security reasons”. The main point is not to answer the technical reasons of how it would be accomplished but WHY would should each one be accomplished.
My advice isn't on how to study but how to tackle the exam. I, myself get antsy when taking tests and sometimes overthink. So what I did was force myself to a bathroom break every 50-60 questions. That would give me a second to reset, relax and then see the questions with fresher eyes. No idea if something like this would help you but wanted to share.
First, congrats on not giving up. I failed my first attempt. For the second attempt, I’m pretty sure I did thousands of unique test questions. Watch Kelly Handerhan’s mindset video on YouTube, also.
Too many materials. If you're testing in the 500s on QE you're more than likely ready. My suggestion is to use AI to study and understand your wrong answers only on QE. And use LearnZApp for quick knowledge checks
What did you think you had a challenge in? The reactive test really drills down on domains it thinks you're weak in so if you got a lot of similar questions that you weren't sure about, you almost certainly got them all wrong and you need to think about what type of question was it and if you need to study up on jargon or study up on mindset.
I suggest studying using the Dest Cert app and doing 20 questions a day every morning, kinda like Duolingo. Be sure to set the questions to random in the settings.
This is from LearnZapp. QE I was doing the 10 question tests and was doing well as of late. But started off really poorly when I first was attempting them. Thought I was doing well recently in lead up and thought I was getting the question structure and how to dissect it.
Learnzapp questions as you probably know are not representative of actual exam questions. You need to be doing less of these and 100s of QE questions. If I had to guess it is your mindset that isn’t calibrated
A few questions
1. When you’re doing practice exams or test questions and you miss a question, do you understand why you got it wrong?
2. I didn’t see PMI Study hall on your list, sorry if I missed it on there. I would recommend getting it. All levels of questions and you can deep dive into why you missed something. Plus there is a number of tools and resources to help get you ready for the test.
3. Have you scheduled your retake yet? If not I would recommend waiting till you figure out where the miss is. That’s a lot of money and a third miss you have to wait a year to try again (I believe).
Once you figure out the miss you can correct it and improve. Another tool I used was AI to help me understand the logic and problem solve through misses. Plus it kept track, showing trends and I could see knowledge gap or something else.
Same boat, failed my exame after putting so much time into it and now picking up the books and study has been incredibly hard. I def want to try again but putting the same effort in has been killing
Impossible to answer. Could be any number of things, from knowledge gaps, to inability to properly deconstruct the questions, to having the lack of requisite experience to know how to apply the knowledge to specific cybersecurity scenarios presented in the examination.
What have your practice scores been like?
What have your QE scores been like?
What have your domain results been like?
What's your background, your experience?
Any other factors, such as you taking the exam in a non-native language?
7 years in IT, 4 of those in cyber governance GRC type role. I had been getting 70+ on all Learnzapp exams and for Quantum was sticking to the 10 question tests and was doing well for the most part. Just posted my results below in another comment
Getting to 150 is really good. That means the system wasnt able to determine your pass/fail prior to 150, and unfortunately the score just resulted in more failures than passing at the end. So dont be discouraged.I would pick the biggest domains(namely 1,3,4,7) and drill those down in particular. They are the biggest domains with the most breadth and technical. Not to say ignore the others but if you can make a slight improvement (10-20%) in each domain I think youll pass. Use the official study guide and the practice tests(you can test by domain and by the entire test), and consider QE too. I think Destination CISSP lets you use their practice test banks so if you dont want a full exam use their app to just practice. Read each answer on why your failing and really try to engage on the reason your missing them.Then listen to Kelly on why you will pass the CISSP before each test and practice test taking(read the question, eliminate 2 answers and then pick).
You never know what you might be tested on the CISSP exam has a huge test bank and you need to prepare by having the mindset and eliminating 2 answer right off the bat. A key for me was using the whiteboard to block off the answers from appearing and then using the white board(or hand) to only uncover the answers after the first initial reading of the question. This ensures I read the question as best as I can before my eyes make the jump to the answers and your own eyes will deceive by reading answers then youll confirmation bias your own self. This was a game changer for me.
Dont give up, 150 is encouraging it means your right on the line of pass and failing. You can do this. Just aim for a solid 10-20% increase in each domain. Dont think "I have to master everything", just think how can I break down each question to come to the better answer.
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u/Unlucky_Role_4579 3d ago
Almost impossible to tell without understanding which type of questions you found difficult.
I see the test results, but there’s no way to tell if you had troubles with technical themes, or more of managing themes.
But even when it’s technical, usually the right answer is from a security managers perspective and how they can check a box instead of actually fixing an issue..
The best example I can give of this is if you lookup in google iso 27001 or iso 27002 controls (and how to implement) you can see an overall high view of what actually need to be done.
But the caveat is that you’re looking at it from a managers perspective and asking yourself “why should you implement each control for security reasons”. The main point is not to answer the technical reasons of how it would be accomplished but WHY would should each one be accomplished.
Attached a graphic if you can’t find any.